Album artwork on "Voices for St. Mary's Home" uses Christmas-card artwork drawn by children at the home, in an overall design by Kendal Jempson.

MOBILE, Alabama -- Christmas always has a soundtrack. And it's always pretty
much the same. Pretty much wherever you go.

But not this year. Not in Mobile.

This year, Lower Alabama gets "Voices for St. Mary's Home,"
a seventeen-track Christmas album featuring more than four dozen musicians who
are either based in Lower Alabama or who appear in the area regularly. From a
tender guitar-and-mandolin take on "Ave Maria" to a punk-rock "I Want a Hippopotamus
for Christmas," from Santa and Rudolph to the Grinch, it applies a sleigh-load
of coastal Alabama talent to a wish list of favorite seasonal classics.

As the title indicates, the CD is a benefit project for St.
Mary's Home, a residential treatment facility created by the Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile for boys and girls "facing
serious conflict, abuse, neglect and abandonment." But there's a little more to
it than that.

The ball got rolling in July, when Mobile musician Brad Lepik
posted a Facebook query to see who'd be interested in participating in a local
Christmas compilation, if the proceeds benefited a children's charity. Response
was strong.

"The idea is actually something I've been dreaming about
doing for 20 years," said Lepik. Years ago, when he'd been living in
Birmingham, he'd been impressed by a similar project called "Christmas Dreams,"
which had benefited United Cerebral Palsy. In recent years he'd been building
up his own rehearsal space/recording studio, Ellinor Place, located at the Loop
in midtown Mobile, and it was now suitably equipped to record such a project.

Among those responding to his original query was Laura
Vendetti. The director of the Gulf Coast Blues Society, Vendetti had worked
throughout 2013 to bring musicians into St. Mary's Home for educational
programs, and she suggested the home as a beneficiary of the project. As Lepik
looked into it, he remembered having school friends who'd been helped by the
home.

"Outside forces just told me this was what I needed to do,"
Lepik said.

Once the ball was rolling, a long process of scheduling and
recording began. Almost all the tracks were recorded at Ellinor Place. Some tunes involved established groups, such as Peek ("Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer"), Frankie Velvet & the Mighty Veltones ("Santa is a
Real Cool Cat") and the Tyler Champion Band (whose "Baby, Please Come Home" is
the opening track). Others involved pickup groups: on "Baby It's Cold Outside,"
Donna Hall and Stan Foster are backed by The Lizards; "Run Rudolph Run"
features Tim Camp of WZEW-FM 92.1 on keyboards, Warren Wolf on guitar, Woody
Pollard on drums and Sam Baylor, better known as a guitarist, on bass.

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"Brad was jumping through hoops," said Stan Foster, who also
performed on "Slipping Into Christmas" with Phil Proctor, Timmy Dennis and Jose
Santiago.

Recording started in July and wasn't finished until mid-November,
but Lepik downplays the logistical challenges. "A lot of these musicians really
took it to heart that we were doing this for St. Mary's," he said.

The highlight of the process, he said, was a day when about
a dozen children from the home came to the studio to lend their own voices to
the project. Lepik had them sing as a chorus on Tony Matranga's "Santa Claus is
Coming to Town," which was easy and familiar, and then on Bud Smith and Kris
Stolz' "So This is Christmas," which was neither.

"They were champs," said Lepik. "They were better than some
people who call themselves professionals."

With only a few minutes left, they decided to let the kids
have "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" all to themselves. Lepik credits John
Rutherford with wrangling that micro-session, which paid off in a big way. It
is the children's voices that close the album.

Brad Lepik sits at a console at his Ellinor Place recording studio. (Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.com)

"Having the kids on there makes it special," Lepik said.

Jill Chenoweth, director of development for the home, said
that's true in more ways than one. "Oh, they loved it," she said. "It was one
of the highlights of their school year, being able to come here and record it."

Foster, who has been to the home as a participant in
Vendetti's program, said he's played venues far larger than the home's
classrooms, but never one where the response was as heartfelt. "I tell you
what," he said. "Nobody enjoys music more than those kids."

There was more to it than simply having a fun outing,
Chenoweth said. For children as severely abused and neglected as some at the
home, she said, such outings can be life-changing. "We try to create positive
memories for them," she said. "Because they don't have a lot of positive
memories."

Similarly, she said, the intangible impact of the album
might matter more than the money it potentially will raise. "It's just knowing
people care about them," she said.

The songs on the album hang together well despite their
diversity. Lepik said credit for that goes to Pensacola-based Bill Roberts, who
mastered and sequenced the tracks. He was one of about 70 people who took part
overall, Lepik said, and all donated their efforts. Chenoweth said a donor had
even covered production costs for the physical disc.

"Voices for St. Mary's Home" can be downloaded now via www.bandcamp.com. It's $10, and the site
allows free listening before the purchase. Physical copies should be available
Friday, Dec. 6; for details on availability, visit the bandcamp.com page or www.facebook.com/voicesforstmaryshome,
or call the home at 251-344-7733.

On Tuesday, Dec. 10, an album release show will take place
at Moe's Original BBQ, 701 Spring Hill Ave. in downtown Mobile. It doubles as
the regular installment of WZEW's "Second Tuesday" live broadcast, which in
December traditionally takes the form of a Christmas jam session. Camp said the
jam will feature as many of the "Voices for St. Mary's Home" musicians as
possible, with a live broadcast starting at 7 p.m. on FM92.1.

"It's a very Zew thing for us to get behind something like
this," Camp said. "It's a very Zew cause, and we always have a great Christmas
party anyway."

(There's more than one crossover here. The version of "Mr.
Grinch" on the album wasn't recorded at Lepik's studio – it's actually a live
take from a previous Zew Christmas jam.)

With the work done, the only question remaining is how
strong response to the album will be. Early signs are good. Foster said friends
as far away as Birmingham are eager to get their hands on it.

All involved hope it'll do more than sell, however.

"I just want to see the kids getting something out of it,"
said Foster.

"I also want people to realize that child abuse is real, and
it's real here in Mobile County," said Chenoweth. "As a society we don't want
to think about it."